Genetics May Influence Your Weather Preference

Genetics May Influence Your Weather Preference

Do you prefer basking outside on a sunny summer day? Or reveling in a downpour of rain? It turns out that genetics may have more to do with this than one might think!

With summer on its way out, the weather is a constant topic on everyone’s mind: the hot, sunny days are soon to be replaced with the cooler, grayer days of fall. It’s a well-known fact that some people prefer the sun to the rain, and vice versa. Sun babies love the warm rays, and there are those interesting few who actually prefer the rain. But did you know that the weather can actually have a profound effect on our mood, and can even be influenced by our mothers?

A study published in the Journal of Emotion proves that there are in fact people who are pre-disposed to like certain types of weather. 500 adolescents and their mothers were surveyed and broken into three groups: summer lovers, summer haters and rain haters.

Summer lovers are just that: summer lovers. They were found to be less fearful, less angry and happier on days with more sunshine and higher temperatures. Summer haters, on the other hand, were found to be happier on days when it was cooler and cloudier. And rain haters, well, you can guess how they behaved on days when it rained: they experienced more feelings of anger and unhappiness than when it wasn’t raining.

The most interesting part of the study though was the correlation found between what type of weather a mother enjoys most and what her children then enjoy. Summer loving mothers were more likely to have children that also enjoyed the summer than could be predicted by chance, and rain-hating mothers were twice as likely to have a rain-hating child than could be determined by pure chance as well.

Basically, the type of weather your mother likes while you’re in the womb will most likely determine the type of weather you yourself will prefer. So the next time you feel yourself grumbling about the rain, you can thank your mother.